Shopify Tally Integration for GST, What to Settle First

Most Shopify to Tally projects get sold as a connector problem: pick an app, map a few fields, and orders start appearing as sales vouchers. The connector is the easy part. What breaks is GST. Shopify records tax in a way that does not match how Tally and your GST returns need it, and nobody decides which system issues the invoice. This guide covers what to settle with your accountant before you pick any app or developer.

Platform details below come from Shopify's Help Center and Tally Solutions' own help pages, checked on 1 October 2026. GST rules change, so confirm the compliance points with your CA before you build anything.

Can Shopify send orders straight to Tally?

Not on its own. Shopify has no built-in Tally connection, so every setup uses one of three routes.

1. CSV export and import. Export orders from Shopify, reshape the file, and import it into TallyPrime. Shopify's order export includes the line item SKU, the payment method, the refunded amount, and up to five tax lines per order. Exports of more than 50 orders are emailed rather than downloaded, so this route is a daily or weekly routine, not a live sync.
2. A connector app. Several Indian vendors sell apps that pull Shopify orders and push them into Tally as vouchers. They differ a lot in how they handle the GST problems below.
3. A custom integration. TallyPrime accepts data from other software over HTTP. Tally's help on integrations initiated from third-party apps describes TallyPrime acting as a server, usually on port 9000, and from TallyPrime 7.0 it also accepts JSON as well as XML.

There is a catch that shapes every route. TallyPrime must be running, with the company loaded, for a request to land. Shopify lives in the cloud, and Tally usually lives on a computer in your accounts office. Something has to sit between them, wait for that machine to be on, and retry when it is not. If your accountant shuts the PC down at 7 pm, orders placed overnight wait until morning. Ask any vendor how they handle this before you sign.

We touched on this briefly in our guide to what breaks in a Shopify ERP integration. Many larger brands put an order management system between Shopify and Tally instead. This guide is for brands connecting the two directly.

Why does GST break first?

Because Shopify stores one tax line where your GST return needs two. Shopify's GST help page says it plainly: "You can't set multiple tax line items in Shopify, but you can set up your taxes so that you're charging the sum of SGST and CGST for sales of goods in the state where your business is located."

So an order shipped within your home state at 18 percent shows a single 18 percent tax amount in Shopify. In Tally, that same sale must be split into 9 percent CGST and 9 percent SGST, each posted to its own ledger. An order shipped to another state should post the full amount as IGST. The integration has to make that decision on every order, and it has to make it from the right address.

Three details catch teams out:

• The state that decides the split. For most online orders of goods, that is the state the goods are delivered to, not the billing address and not where the card was issued. Map the shipping address state, and agree the rule with your CA for edge cases such as gifts and store pickup.
• Tax-inclusive prices. Most Indian stores show prices including GST. Shopify then works out the tax portion inside the price, and its help page warns that "it might appear that tax has not been charged." Your integration must post the taxable value and the tax separately, not the selling price as revenue.
• Rounding. Splitting one tax amount into two halves, line by line, can leave a paisa or two of difference against the order total. Decide in advance which ledger absorbs it, or your accountant will chase tiny mismatches every month.

Shipping charges need the same care. If you charge for delivery, that charge carries GST too, and it needs its own ledger and tax treatment in Tally rather than being folded into product sales.

Where should HSN codes live in Shopify?

In the product's HS tariff code field, if your codes are six digits or longer. Shopify's GST page says you can "use the HS tariff code for products to store the HSN code," found in the Shipping section of the product page, and that the field "requires that codes have at least 6 digits." If you use shorter HSN codes, Shopify suggests storing them as metafields or product tags instead.

Whichever you choose, pick one place and use it for every product. A connector reading the tariff field will miss codes kept in tags, and products will reach Tally without an HSN code. We see this most often in catalogs that grew over years, where older products were set up one way and newer ones another.

The other half of this is matching products to Tally stock items. That match should run on SKU, and every variant needs a unique SKU that exists in both systems. If your Tally stock items are named "Blue Kurta M" while Shopify uses "KRT-BLU-M", someone has to build and maintain a mapping table, and every new product launch adds to it. Fixing SKUs before the integration is cheaper than mapping around them forever.

Who issues the GST invoice, Shopify or Tally?

Not Shopify. Its GST help page answers the question directly: "Shopify doesn't create a GST-compliant bill. To create a GST-compliant bill, use a local third-party GST invoicing service or an app from the Shopify App Store."

That leaves you to choose where the legal invoice comes from. You have two sensible options:

• An invoicing app in Shopify creates the invoice at the time of the order and sends it to the customer. Tally then records a copy. The invoice number must come across to Tally unchanged, or your GSTR-1 will not match what customers received.
• Tally issues the invoice when the voucher is created. This keeps one numbering series in one place, but the customer receives the invoice later, and the voucher has to reach Tally before you dispatch if the invoice goes in the box.

The mistake is letting both systems number invoices. Two series for the same sales is the fastest route to a reconciliation mess at return filing time.

B2B orders add one more layer. Businesses whose aggregate turnover has exceeded Rs 5 crore in any financial year since 2017-18 must generate e-invoices for B2B supplies, a threshold lowered from Rs 10 crore with effect from 1 August 2023. If you sell to registered businesses through Shopify, collect the buyer's GSTIN with the order and carry it through to Tally, so the e-invoice can be generated against the right party.

How do you reconcile gateway payouts in Tally?

By recording each sale at its full value and the gateway's deduction separately. Shopify Payments is not available in India, so prepaid orders run through Razorpay, Cashfree, PayU or similar. These providers settle to your bank in batches, net of their fees. The bank receipt never equals any single order.

The clean pattern has three parts:

1. Post each order to the customer or a gateway receivable ledger at the full order value.
2. When the settlement arrives, post the bank receipt against that receivable.
3. Post the gateway's fee as an expense, with the GST on that fee recorded separately so you can claim the input credit. The settlement report from your gateway gives you the breakdown.

Done this way, the receivable ledger for each gateway should come back to zero after every settlement. When it does not, you have a missing order or a refund that never reached Tally. We compare the gateways themselves in our Razorpay and Cashfree guide.

COD needs its own receivable ledger for each courier or aggregator, because cash arrives through courier remittances days or weeks after delivery. Shopify's own fees are a separate purchase entry. Shopify notes that GST exemption on its fees applies only "to invoices issued after you submit your GSTIN," so add your GSTIN to your Shopify billing details before you start booking those bills.

How should refunds and RTO orders be recorded?

As credit notes against the original invoice once an invoice exists, and as a cancelled order when none does. This is where COD-heavy stores lose the most accuracy.

A prepaid return after delivery is straightforward: a credit note for the returned items, linked to the original invoice, and a refund against the gateway receivable. RTO is messier. A COD order that comes back undelivered was never paid for. Whether you need a credit note depends on whether you raised the invoice at dispatch or only on delivery. That timing is a decision for you and your CA, and the integration has to follow it consistently.

Watch partial refunds and exchanges closely. Shopify can refund part of an order or swap one item for another, and a simple connector may push only the refunded amount without the item detail Tally needs for stock and HSN reporting. We cover the Shopify side of this in our returns and exchanges guide, and why RTO costs Indian stores so much in our COD and RTO guide.

Should you sync every order or a daily summary?

It depends on what your returns need and how many orders you handle. Ask your CA one question first: which sales must appear invoice by invoice in your GSTR-1, and which can be reported in summary?

Order-level vouchers give you a full trail. Every Shopify order has a matching voucher, refunds link to it cleanly, and an audit question takes minutes to answer. The cost is volume. A store doing a few hundred orders a day creates a lot of vouchers, and Tally's performance and your accountant's patience both matter.

A daily summary voucher, one per state and tax rate, keeps Tally light. It only works if the invoice-level detail lives somewhere reliable, usually your invoicing app, and if B2B orders are still posted individually. Many stores end up with a hybrid: B2B orders one by one, B2C orders summarised daily.

Connector app or custom integration?

Start with a connector app if your setup is standard. You sell from one GSTIN, mostly B2C, with clean SKUs and one or two payment gateways. Test it on a copy of your Tally company with a week of real orders, including a return, an RTO, a partial refund, a discounted order and an inter-state order. If the GST ledgers come out right on all of those, you have your answer.

Custom work earns its cost when the standard setup does not fit:

• Multiple GSTINs, such as warehouses registered in different states
• A mix of B2B and B2C with e-invoicing on the B2B side
• Bundles or kits that sell as one item in Shopify but are separate stock items in Tally
• Marketplace and Shopify sales flowing into the same books
• Strict rules on when an invoice is raised, which no off-the-shelf app follows

Either way, do not switch on live sync before your accountant has signed off on the ledger mapping. Cleaning up a month of wrong vouchers takes far longer than testing a week of right ones. If stock levels are also drifting between systems, our inventory sync diagnostic is the place to start.

What should you settle before choosing a tool?

Write down these answers with your CA, then hand the list to any vendor or developer you are evaluating:

1. Which system issues the legal invoice, and which numbering series it uses
2. Which address state decides CGST and SGST versus IGST
3. Where HSN codes live in Shopify, and whether every product has one
4. Whether every variant has a unique SKU that matches a Tally stock item
5. When an invoice is raised for COD orders, and how RTO is recorded
6. Order-level vouchers or daily summaries, and for which customer types
7. Which ledgers take gateway fees, the GST on those fees, shipping income and rounding

A vendor who cannot show you how their tool handles each of these on a test company is selling you a field mapper, not an accounting integration.

Want your Shopify to Tally setup checked?

Free setup review. Get in touch or email hello@exactwhy.com with the subject "Tally review" and your store URL. Tell us how orders reach Tally today, whether by CSV, an app or manual entry. We reply within 4 hours with the gaps we see against the checklist above.

Integration build. If the standard apps do not fit your GST setup, we build the connection between Shopify and TallyPrime around the rules your CA has set. That includes the retry layer for when the Tally machine is offline, and a test run on a copy of your company before anything touches live books.